Putting Society Publishing in Context
Society publishing is surrounded by rivalrous groups, which tend to undermine the societies’ activities. It’s time to renew the development of membership through exclusive products.
Economic Stocks and Flows — A Lecture Using a Phillips MONIAC Economic Analog
A fluidic computer designed to model a national economy holds lessons for doing things directly and physically. Sometimes, you have to get your hands wet.
Open Access – What’s a Learned Society To Do?
Learned societies are likely to be significantly affected by OA mandates, yet many remain silent, and may be ill-informed. What is their path forward?
Stray Thoughts from Vacation — The Ego Epidemic, the Myth of Shareholder Value, and Giving Up Too Easily
Stray thoughts from vacationland. You may see these again.
The Beatles Yesterday and Today: An Allegory of the Role of Paid Content
An essay on the Beatles and their business model, which emphasized paid content, now called “toll-access” content. The question is how the Beatles would have been different if they had worked in an era where content was expected to be free.
Presentations on PDA from the AAUP Conference, 2012
PDA as presented to the AAUP. Slides from Joe Esposito and Rick Anderson. Enjoy!
Ready for Some Pizza — Visualizing Pizza Delivery in NYC and Beyond
Tracking pizza deliveries tells us a lot about one of our major cities, its inhabitants, socioeconomic aspects, and more.
Publishers! What Are They Good For? Part Deux: The Debate
The participants in the recent SSP session debating the value of publishers reflect on the session, the audience interactions, and their talks. And, of course, the Romans.
"Strategic Dynamism" at the University of Virginia: Implications for Scholarly Communication?
The brouhaha at the University of Virginia raises key questions for everyone in the scholarly communications world — about whether we can exert control, or only respond to change.
Correction: NLM Does Not Charge for PubMed Data
Oops. Sorry.
PeerJ: Silicon Valley Culture Enters Academic Publishing
PeerJ is bringing something new to scholarly publishing, but it’s not a business model or a technology approach — it’s a mindset.
Is PeerJ Membership Publishing Sustainable?
The details of PeerJ’s business model raise many questions, some of which may pertain to inherent Silicon Valley ways of doing business, others to efforts to create a community of required activity.
Not Free, Not Easy, Not Trivial — The Warehousing and Delivery of Digital Goods
The idea that digital goods have no ongoing cost and can therefore be free has several problems, the basic one being reality itself.
The Outside Context Effect and Book Publishing Dominance
Is the Internet simply an irresistible “outside context” event for traditional book publishers? Two interesting articles make it clear that it may be, if wielded aggressively. The “outside context problem” was described in Iain M. Bank’s book “Excession,” in which […]
The ALPSP Report on Six-Month Embargo Mandates — STM Journals Die Slowly, Social Science Journals Die Quickly
The ALPSP study of the possible effects of a six-month embargo for journal content shows that humanities and social science journals are more at-risk, but the entire industry could find the precipice if such mandates were to take shape.